1800 - 1850
1800 - Alessandro Volta
invents the
wet cell battery1800 - Humphrey Davy synthesizes nitrous oxide
1800 - Samuel von Sommering identifies black material in the midbrain and calls it the "substantia nigra"
1801 - Thomas Young describes astigmatism
1801 - Adam Friedrich Wilhelm Serturner crystalizes opium and obtains morphine
1805 - Felix Vicq d'Azyr discovers the red nucleus
1808 - Franz Joseph Gall publishes work on phrenology
1809 - Johann Christian Reil uses alcohol to harden the brain
1809 - Luigi Rolando uses galvanic current to stimulate cortex
1811 - Julien Jean Legallois discovers respiratory center in medulla
1811 - Charles Bell discusses functional differences between dorsal and ventral roots of the spinal cord
1812 - Benjamin Rush publishes Medical Inquiries and Observations upon the Diseases of the Mind
1813 - Felix Vicq d'Azyr discovers the claustrum
1817 - James Parkinson publishes An Essay on the Shaking Palsy
1818 - Library of the Surgeon
General's Office established (later to become the Army Medical Library
and then the National Library of Medicine)1820 - Galvanometer invented
1821 - Charles Bell describes facial paralysis ipsilateral to facial nerve lesion (Bell's palsy)
1821 - Francois Magendie discusses functional differences between dorsal and ventral roots of the spinal cord
1822 - Friedrich Burdach names the cingular gyrus
1822 - Friedrich Burdach distinguishes lateral and medial geniculate
1823 - Marie-Jean-Pierre Flourens states that cerebellum regulates motor activity
1824 - John C. Caldwell publishes Elements of Phrenology
1824 - Marie-Jean-Pierre Flourens details ablation to study behavior
1824 - F. Magendie provides first evidence of cerebellum role in equilibration
1825 - John P. Harrison first argues against phrenology
1825 - Jean-Baptiste Bouillaud presents cases of loss of speech after frontal lesions
1825 - Robert B. Todd discusses the role of the cerebral cortex in mentation, corpus striatum in movement and midbrain in emotion
1825 - Luigi Rolando describes the sulcus that separates the precentral and postcentral gyri
1826 - Johannes Muller publishes theory of "specific nerve energies"
1827 - Francois Magendie discovers foramen of Magendie
1827 - E. Merck & Company market morphine
1832 - Justus von Liebig discovers chloral hydrate
1832 - Jean-Pierre Robiquet isolates codeine
1832 - Massachusetts establishes a "State Lunatic Hospital" for the mentally ill
1832 - Sir Charles Wheatstone invents the stereoscope
1833 - Philipp L. Geiger isolates atropine
1836 - Marc Dax reads paper on left hemisphere damage effects on speech
1836 - Gabriel Gustav Valentin identifies neuron nucleus and nucleolus
1836 - Robert Remak describes myelinated and unmyelinated axons
1836 - Charles Dickens (the novelist) describes obstructive sleep apnea
1837 - Jan Purkyne (Purkinje) describes cerebellar cells; identifies neuron nucleus and processes
1837 - The American Physiological Society is founded
1838 - Robert Remak suggests that nerve fiber and nerve cell are joined
1838 - Theordor Schwann describes the myelin-forming cell in the peripheral nervous system ("Schwann cell")
1838 - Jean-Etienne-Dominique Esquirol publishes Des Maladies Mentales, possibly the first modern work about mental disorders
1838 - Napoleonic Code leads to the requirement of facilities for the mentally ill
1838 - Eduard Zeis publishes study about dreams in people who are blind
1839 - Theordor Schwann proposes the cell theory
1839 - C. Chevalier coins the term microtome
1839 - Francois Leuret names the Rolandic sulcus for Luigi Rolando
1840 - Adolph Hannover uses chromic acid to harden nervous tissue
1840 - Jules Gabriel Francois Baillarger discusses the connections between white and gray matter of cerebral cortex
1840 - Adolphe Hannover discovers the ganglion cells of the retina
1841 - Dorothea Lynde Dix investigates brutality within mental hospitals in the United States
1842 - Benedikt Stilling is first to study spinal cord in serial sections
1842 - Crawford W. Long uses ether on man
1842 - Francois Magendie describes the median opening in the roof of the fourth ventricle (foramen of Magendie)
1843 - James Braid coins the term "hypnosis"
1844 - Robert Remak provides first illustration of 6-layered cortex
1844 - Horace Wells uses nitrous oxide during a tooth extraction
1846 - William Morton demonstrates ether anesthesia at Massachusetts General Hospital
1847 - Chloroform anesthesia used by James Young Simpson
1847 - American Medical Association is founded
1847 - The American Association for the Advancement of Science is founded
1848 - Phineas Gage has his brain pierced by an iron rod
1848 - Richard Owen coins the word "notochord"
1849 - Hermann von Helmholtz measures the speed of frog nerve impulses